Electronic Arts announcesBattlefield 3 is now available in North America, offering the latest installment in DICE's series of military first-person shooters. They say more than three million preorders make this the "biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history." Here's word on the game:

Celebrated for its immersive single-player campaign, intense co-op mode and explosive multiplayer gameplay, Battlefield 3 launches with a 93 on Metacritic and is being heralded as “unforgettable” by IGN.com, “mesmerizing” by Joystiq and the “must have first-person shooter of the year” from GameSpy, who awarded Battlefield 3 a perfect 5 out of 5. Even prior to launch, fans around the world have already demonstrated their anticipation for the game with over 100 million video views and over 2 million “likes” on the Battlefield Facebook page in addition to thousands having purchased fan merchandise at the DICE store. Additionally, an astounding 9.5 million gamers downloaded the September beta and collectively set new social online play records for EA with 42 billion shots fired and 1.6 billion kills registered, 21 million exploded M-Com stations and 19 million dog tags lost at the end of a knife.

Battlefield 3 goes above and beyond the competition with the state-of-the-art Frostbite™ 2 game engine that creates a massive sense of scale, completely destructible environments and enables players to pilot a range of vehicles from jets and tanks to choppers and jeeps. With the addition of Battlelog, the Battlefield social network service, fans old and new can stay connected as they rise to the challenge to become one of the world’s best soldiers. To accompany the game, Orion Publishing will release a novel called Battlefield 3: The Russian written by the highly decorated ex-SAS operator and best-selling author of Bravo Two Zero, Andy McNab, with co-author Peter Grimsdale. McNab worked with the creative team at DICE to ensure the authenticity of today’s warfare is experienced in the single player, co-op and multiplayer campaigns.

SpectralMeat wrote on Oct 26, 2011, 15:05:Funny how people get upset about the $10 difference between the $49.99 and $59.99 for a game that (if you bought BF3 for the right reason which is MP) you'll get at least 50 hrs of fun and entertainment out of, yet noone gets upset about MMO prices.

If I add up how many years I've been subscribing to EVE ($14.99/month + cost of the game $49.99) and how much entertainment I got out of it I think BF3 is a bargain. Your mileage may vary of course but I just don't understand the big deal about the $59.99 price tag. If you do not like the game or the genre then you are not going to buy the game anyways regardless what the price is $49.99 or $59.99.

Agreed, personally between finishing the SP, which while standard shooter fair plot wise the tank and plane missions were both awesome imo, and having a blast with my platoon in MP, that extra 10 dollars was well spent in my opinion. The game is gorgeous, it runs great on my machine on high with all the bells and whistles turned on (70FPS average) and it's fucking fun. Can't ask for too much more than that.

SpectralMeat wrote on Oct 26, 2011, 15:05:Funny how people get upset about the $10 difference between the $49.99 and $59.99 for a game that (if you bought BF3 for the right reason which is MP) you'll get at least 50 hrs of fun and entertainment out of, yet noone gets upset about MMO prices.

If I add up how many years I've been subscribing to EVE ($14.99/month + cost of the game $49.99) and how much entertainment I got out of it I think BF3 is a bargain. Your mileage may vary of course but I just don't understand the big deal about the $59.99 price tag. If you do not like the game or the genre then you are not going to buy the game anyways regardless what the price is $49.99 or $59.99.

Agreed, personally between finishing the SP, which while standard shooter fair plot wise the tank and plane missions were both awesome imo, and having a blast with my platoon in MP, that extra 10 dollars was well spent in my opinion. The game is gorgeous, it runs great on my machine on high with all the bells and whistles turned on (70FPS average) and it's fucking fun. Can't ask for too much more than that.

Funny how people get upset about the $10 difference between the $49.99 and $59.99 for a game that (if you bought BF3 for the right reason which is MP) you'll get at least 50 hrs of fun and entertainment out of, yet noone gets upset about MMO prices.

If I add up how many years I've been subscribing to EVE ($14.99/month + cost of the game $49.99) and how much entertainment I got out of it I think BF3 is a bargain. Your mileage may vary of course but I just don't understand the big deal about the $59.99 price tag. If you do not like the game or the genre then you are not going to buy the game anyways regardless what the price is $49.99 or $59.99.

DedEye wrote on Oct 25, 2011, 19:14:considering I bought Daggerfall back in the day for $120, and PC titles have generally stayed around $40-$60 over the past 10 or 15 years, I don't see that as too much for this game.

Indeed. Not only is a $10 increase over 20 years not that much at all, but games were not always $50 10 years ago either. I know for a fact from looking at advertisements in my boxes that Under a Killing Moon was $80 for example, and Warcraft 3 was $60. Doom 3 was $60 before the Xbox 360 came out.

Origin is mostly uninvolved and makes you wonder why they said it was required. All its used for is product code redemption and DLC management, everything else is handled by Battlelog except the overlay which I'll likely never use anyway. There's nothing Battlelog does that couldn't be done via an in-game browser and I'm weary of having two additional web plugins to worry about compatibility for but it could be worse. It's without a doubt the best interface Dice has ever come up with and getting into games is easily a full minute faster than I recall BC2 being.

I think their decision on no public voicecomm without a formed party is a bad one though, it would go a long way towards improving the experience on public servers if you could communicate outside of the oddly placed text box.

I used a "party" on the battlelog which has nice voicecom and we used that all day. For 4 people just fine. But then when I tried later yesterday night with Krovven we weren't able to get it working and ended up using Steam voice instead.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised by Origin/Battlelog, I wish they weren't separate (and I wish for Steam instead) but it wasn't totally awful and performed (for me) great especially considering it was launch day.

Elessar wrote on Oct 26, 2011, 12:20:The game crashes every 10 mins or so when in MP games, so I can't really get enough time to enjoy it. Seems to be server related, because when it crashes for me, my friends usually crash shortly after. I'm going to let this cook for a bit and hopefully a patch will resolve these stability issues.

Same thing was happening to me last night. Reinstalling PB helped a little but it seems like the login servers at EA are having some issues, probably just congestion. There was some server maintenance today so it may be better tonight, but given the popularity of this game I wouldn't be surprised if we will have some server issues for a little while.

The game crashes every 10 mins or so when in MP games, so I can't really get enough time to enjoy it. Seems to be server related, because when it crashes for me, my friends usually crash shortly after. I'm going to let this cook for a bit and hopefully a patch will resolve these stability issues.

I've really got to give DICE credit for the infantry combat, it feels so much better than it ever has before. I've never been able to play a sniper in previous BF games, because it never felt right to me. I just gave it a try for a round, and it felt perfect. I'm also really liking the decision to have unsuppressed shots give your location on the minimap.

Also, that silenced pistol is a beast. Highly recommended for close combat.

I must be about halfway through the singleplayer campaign also, and my own experience has been somewhat mixed.

The game's AI has frustrated me on occasion. I've had it a couple of times now where I'll take up cover at a convenient location, take a few shots, and then my character starts moving. I turn around, and there's an AI teammate having effectively pushed my character out into the open by also taking cover in the same location.

They like running into my line of fire too. If I'm crouching, aiming down the sight, and shooting, it's probably not a good idea to walk right in front.

The engine is obviously fantastic, it's by far the engine to beat, but it continues to amuse me how they can make these worlds look so great but can't populate them with even passable AI.

I'll give one huge nod to DICE though, the sounds. Ok so it's bugged out on occasion, but for the most part, the game sounds amazing. I might have to actually give the game's multiplayer a go

Someone said the commo rose and a few other things were currently in the game but I don't see them and Dice says they'll be added "at a later date". For a game that relies on teamwork the continued lack of decent server-wide VoIP support is a serious frustration. It appears that you can use it if you group up your squad pre-game in Battlelog but I don't see any way to control it in-game nor have I heard anyone else in-game. It makes pubstomping a frustrating affair so I try to play with friends exclusively.

The open maps are a total blast and the game feels great when playing them. The meat grinder maps are kind of a bummer, Tehran Highway has some very confusing Conquest design for example but I suspect it was only meant to be a Rush map.

The little that I did play from the SP campaign was okay but frustrating. I also felt like wasting my time playing SP when I could have a lot more fun and ranking up in MP. I don't think I will be playing much of SP.

Viranth wrote on Oct 26, 2011, 02:32:I died ONCE on that mission, other than that I don't understand what you are doing. Just stay behind cover and shoot the bad guys, don't stay out in the open, apparantly they can aim

I think the SP is pretty cool, somewhat like COD yes, but it's much better directed I think, and the action is fun.

The multiplayer is good as well, been playing a bit. Seems to be some lag on some servers, wish there was a way of filtering out laggy servers (even though they have good ping).

Sure, if you're playing on easy, I'm playing on the hardest level. Did the friendly AI drop dead on you in certain places? At one point, when assaulting the 2nd MG nest, I stayed back trying to figure out wtf the guy was talking about using the canals for cover. Eventually the friendly AI took out the MG nest on their own, then a few seconds later they die. Nobody shoots them, they just drop dead. Did you get any intermediate waypoints between taking out the 2nd MG nest and assaulting the buildings? Because the waypoint it gives me, you have to go in the opposite direction, by some rocks, up a hill turn around and go through a little forest before you get there. It's a little confusing when every friendly AI dies for no reason, and the jerk yelling at you to get up there and assault some buildings is already there, which is behind me. I didn't see anyone go up there, and there's a dozen enemy to fight through to get to the friendly AI that is alive.

JAGUART wrote on Oct 25, 2011, 22:33:Browser is still tedious, but otherwise it runs great so far...

Battlelog was a terrible idea from its inception and remains one after using it for a few hours. Tried playing with a few buddies tonight and it was a gong show. Then there is the whole group join feature which worked less than half the time. I never thought they could do a worse UI than Bad Co 2's, guess I was wrong.

I've only tried the SP so far. I wanted to get my keys set up and get a feel for it. The SP is CODish, and frustrating as fuck in parts. The save points could be better placed in some, and one had to have been bugged. I can't remember the name of the mission, but it starts out climbing over a wall, running down a hill to a canal. There's a few bad guys at the bottom then some MG nests. I must have restarted that a hundred times, and a few times I almost put my fist through my monitor.

Right at the start, I was up near the top of the hill picking off baddies, then I run down to the guy I'm supposed to be following. There are a couple of other friendlies in front and a couple behind me, and they just drop dead. I follow the other guy, we run up some stairs and someone yells for us to put some cover fire on a MG nest. I drop prone and kill the three guys in it and another that runs up. The enemy are all dead, but the guy in front of me drops dead. Some new friendlies come from behind and blow it up with a grenade.

Then another MG nest opens up on you, and someone yells to get some fire on it and something about using the canals. I run over and jump into the canal, but there's no where to go. I go back around and move up to the wall and toss a grenade over and it blows up, but a MG in a building up the hill to my right opens up and kills me. Eventually I get the second MG nest taken care of and find a place where I can't get killed.

This is where it gets buggy. As soon as the second MG nest blows up, all the friendlies drop dead. Then I think it skips a few waypoints because now I'm hearing someone yell about clearing out the buildings, and the waypoint is behind me and up that hill. I run around like an idiot trying to figure out how to get up there. Then I find it only to get mowed down by another MG nest in the distant buildings.

After several restarts I finally get back to that point. Now there are a bunch of enemies on the path I need to take, and I have to do it alone because the friendly IA drop dead after that MG nest gets blown up. Now I'm running up the hill and 4 guys jump over the wall firing guns. I drop down an start firing back only to get bitched at that friendly fire won't be tolerated. Where the fuck were these assholes 5 minutes ago when I was alone?